On the eve of the opening of the G20 Summit in London on April 2, Geithner expanded on his views for "new rules of the game." He said, "Our hope is that we can work with Europe on a global framework, a global infrastructure which has appropriate global oversight, so we don’t have a Balkanized system at the global level, like we had at the national level."

It’s no wonder that commentators are starting to refer to a possible world currency as the "globo." …

Surely the Obama administration must know that loose talk about a global currency is not acceptable to the American people.

Ever since President George W. Bush went to Waco in 2005 to meet with Vicente Fox and announced the Security and Prosperity Partnership, the Internet and the blogs have been buzzing with speculation about a plan to put the United States into a North American Union along with a common currency already labeled the amero. Government officials and various elites have been issuing impassioned denials that any such plan exists.

But now we have it from our highest financial authority, Geithner, that a world currency is on the table of international discussions. And he implies that we shouldn’t be surprised because it is "evolutionary" in our existing financial "architecture."

That is how the Europeans were tricked into the European Union by their governments, mostly without any vote by the people. The EU started out as just a trade agreement, but it evolved into a political union that ultimately replaced national currencies with a common currency called the euro.

Here’s a first-hand account of the goings-on in that devilish covern, the deceptively named UN Human Rights Council (read more here):

The Inquisition is back, and this time it has set up shop at the United Nations. Consider the resolution “Combating the Defamation of Religions” passed by a comfortable margin last week at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva (and passed by the General Assembly every year since 2005).

The resolution decries a “campaign of defamation of religions,” intensifying since 2001, in which “the media” and “extremist organizations” are “perpetuating stereotypes about certain religions” (read: Islam) and “sacred persons” (read: Muhammad). It urges UN member states to provide redress “within their respective legal and constitutional systems.” Capitalizing on cartoon riots and Western anxieties over the excesses of the war on terror, the language conflates peaceful criticism of Islam with anti-Muslim bigotry and seeks to stifle speech in the name of “respect for religions and beliefs.”

In my capacity as UN representative for the secularist think tank Center for Inquiry, I spent a surreal two weeks at the Council participating in the negotiations over the language of this resolution, sponsored by a 57-member intergovernmental body called the Organization of the Islamic Conference, or OIC.

After one of these sessions, I found my way into a private conversation with the chair of the negotiations, a delegate for the government of Pakistan. We were soon joined by the representatives of the US, Canada, and the European Union. There we were, “the West,” standing at the front of an empty conference room, gingerly trying to reason with this feisty, yet solicitous, Pakistani diplomat.

The American delegate noted that, “History shows that criminalizing speech doesn’t work,” when the chair interrupted her to propose a case he hoped would hit home. Suppose someone were to say that the Virgin Mary was not a virgin but a promiscuous woman? What could be the purpose of this statement, he asked, except mockery?

Canada pointed out that ‘defamation’ has a specific legal meaning—involving the spread of falsehoods that harm some individual—which is not applicable to cases of religiously offensive speech. For starters, religious personages like Mary and Muhammad are not alive, so they’re not, legally speaking, persons who can be harmed. Undeterred by the Canadian’s reductio ad absurdum, the Pakistani delegate responded that this is precisely why we need the authorities to protect them against insult: they are not around to defend themselves.

Never mind how one would demonstrate, in a court of law, the falsity of a scurrilous rumor about a far-distant and long-gone (and quite possibly never-there) religious figure. Ironically, all the world’s heretics could never do more damage to the reputations of gods, saints, and prophets than has already been done by their devoted followers. The odd thing about God is that no matter how much He is slandered, his livelihood never seems to suffer as a result. One of the perks of being a necessary being, I guess, is that you never lose your job no matter how unpopular you become. In that respect God may be the ultimate bureaucrat. I didn’t bring this up.

It would all be absurdist comedy if it didn’t have such grave consequences. Defamation of religions resolutions are far worse than useless; they are a direct threat to human rights. While they will have no impact on blasphemy in western democracies (which already censor themselves far too often), they serve to legitimize the suppression of peaceful political and religious dissent elsewhere—first and foremost in the Islamic states themselves.

According to USA Today, a whole lot of nuclear power plants may be built.

The nation’s nuclear power industry — stuck in a decades-long deep freeze — is thawing. Utilities are poised to build a new generation of nuclear plants 30 years after the Three Mile Island accident, whose anniversary was Saturday, halted new reactor applications. The momentum is being driven by growing public acceptance of relatively clean nuclear energy to combat global warming. Several companies have taken significant steps that will likely lead to completion of four reactors by 2015 to 2018 and up to eight by 2020. All would be built next to existing nuclear plants. Southern Co. (SO) says it will begin digging an 86-foot-deep crater this June in Vogtle, Ga., to make way for two reactors after recently winning state approval, though it won’t pour concrete until it gets a federal license, likely in 2011. At least five power companies have signed contracts with equipment vendors. And Florida and South Carolina residents this year began paying new utility fees to finance planned reactors. The steps signal that a nuclear renaissance anticipated for several years is finally taking shape. Seventeen companies have sought U.S. federal approval for 26 reactors since late 2007.

Writing in the Chicago Tribune last week, President Barack Obama fell back on one of his favorite rhetorical tics: "But I also know," he wrote, "that we need not choose between a chaotic and unforgiving capitalism and an oppressive government-run economy. That is a false choice that will not serve our people or any people."

Really? For the moment, it’s a "false choice" mainly in the sense that he’s not offering it: "a chaotic and unforgiving capitalism" is not on the menu, which leaves "an oppressive government-run economy" as pretty much the only game in town.

A United Nations document on "climate change" that will be distributed to a major environmental conclave next week envisions a huge reordering of the world economy, likely involving trillions of dollars in wealth transfer, millions of job losses and gains, new taxes, industrial relocations, new tariffs and subsidies, and complicated payments for greenhouse gas abatement schemes and carbon taxes — all under the supervision of the world body.

Those and other results are blandly discussed in a discretely worded United Nations "information note" on potential consequences of the measures that industrialized countries will likely have to take to implement the Copenhagen Accord, the successor to the Kyoto Treaty, after it is negotiated and signed by December 2009. The Obama administration has said it supports the treaty process if, in the words of a U.S. State Department spokesman, it can come up with an "effective framework" for dealing with global warming.

There is a storm in the teacup of the right blogosphere.Charles Johnson of LGF, whom we greatly admire and usually agree with, opines that Republicans are wrong to say they want Obama – who has called himself ‘The Ones we have been waiting for’ -to fail, as the vast middle of the nation will hear this as wanting America to fail.These people, apparently, do not want any American president to fail.

Well, it is time the vast middle of the nation opened its ears and really listened to what is being said. If they had done that during 2008, they would not have voted in a president that wants America to fail. The vast middles may have liked The Ones’ positive message of hope and change. But his actual policies are already undermining this nation, preparing the way for the international socialist utopia.

The left wanted Bush to fail, because they wanted America to fail. They still do.Wanting The Ones to fail is not tit-for-tat, or descending to the Left’s level. It is aprincipled political stance, whether articulated or not.

We want The Ones to fail so that America can survive and protect what is left of civilization in this increasingly nasty world.And it is senselessly prissy to draw a distinction between saying we want The Ones to fail and saying we want his policies to fail. The Ones has no political existence other than in his policies.

Some pills should not be sugar-coated, some messages should not be massaged.

We draw our readers’ attention to the comments made by ‘roger in florida’ on our post below, The budding American dictatorship.

We do not agree with all that he says. We do not think that one should put the needs of society above one’s own. We think it is when individuals put their own needs first that an economy works best. Reversing the Marxist formula, we say: ‘From each according to his need, to each according to his ability.’ A person working for his own gain (within the law) will have to provide what others will buy; how high a reward he gets will depend on how well he carries out the task he has chosen.

But on the whole we value the thoughts in these comments. They are intensely pessimistic, painfully enlightening, and – we think with sorrow – all too probably right in their predictions.

China’s defense spending is far outpacing that of other nations in its region, and its aggressive development of ballistic and cruise missiles and attack submarines threatens to upset the balance of power in Asia and beyond, according to a Pentagon report released yesterday. China’s official military budget grew nearly 18 percent in 2008 to $60 billion, although the Pentagon estimates spending at $105 billion to $150 billion. Its 2005 military budget was 10 times as high as the 1989 budget, and if current trends continue, the 2009 budget will nearly double the 2005 figure, according to the report, mandated annually by Congress… The report also says China’s People’s Liberation Army is acquiring large numbers of "highly accurate" cruise missiles and modernizing its long-range ballistic missile force by making it more mobile and, therefore, more secure. "China has the most active land-based ballistic and cruise missile program in the world," it states. China continues to build up an arsenal of short-range missiles along its coast opposite Taiwan … The longer-range DF-31A missile, deployed in 2007, has a range of almost 7,000 miles and "can target any location in the continental United States," the report says …

Rep. Barney Frank, the Democrat who sits atop Congress’ efforts to deal with the financial crisis, has enough chutzpah for 100 politicians — which is saying a lot.

In comments before testimony from both Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Fed chief Ben Bernanke Tuesday, Frank said he wants to regulate pay on Wall Street — even for companies that aren’t getting bailouts.

And he called retention bonuses — a time-honored practice on Wall Street and elsewhere in America in which key employees are compensated for their enormous value — "extortion" and "bribes."

Frank, one of the chief architects of the housing mess that’s brought us so low, isn’t satisfied merely with pretending he and his Democratic pals aren’t to blame for all this. No, exploiting voter anger over the now-infamous AIG bonuses, he also wants to dictate to American capitalism what it can earn and what it can’t.

This is the kind of thing that normally happens in Third World countries ruled by tinhorn dictators, or in fascist states, where the democratic rule of law has collapsed. Not the U.S.

Yet, that’s where we find ourselves today, isn’t it? Democrats in Congress, who steadfastly rejected virtually all efforts to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as they went on the wildest, most irresponsible lending binge in the history of finance, now pose themselves as the saviors of fallen capitalism.

The hypocrisy is nothing short of stunning.

Take Frank. As we’ve written before, he spearheaded congressional Democrats’ efforts in 1992, 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2005 to block reform of Fannie and Freddie.

Those two "government-sponsored enterprises" were the nexus of this crisis, holding $5.4 trillion of the $12 trillion in U.S. mortgages, while originating or funding 90% of the subprime market.

Their failures presaged the subsequent financial meltdown from which we’re still trying to regain our economic footing.

Then there’s Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, another posturing moralist in the flap over AIG bonuses. He turns out to have inserted the bonuses into the bailout legislation in the first place.

An innocent move? Please note Dodd was No. 1 on the list of recipients of AIG’s political contributions. Also that his wife was a former director of IPC Holdings, a company controlled by AIG.

We wish all this tinkering with the private sector was limited to Congress. But it isn’t. The Treasury wants what the Washington Post called Tuesday "unprecedented powers to initiate the seizure of non-bank financial companies, such as large insurers, investment firms and hedge funds, whose collapse would damage the broader economy."

Citing the AIG precedent, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs defended this radical move, saying on CNN, "We need resolution authority to go in and be able to change contracts, be able to change the business model, unwind what doesn’t work."

Breathtaking. Coupled with the vast expansion of government spending over the next 10 years, this is socialism, pure and simple.

Yes, we know it’s unfashionable to use the "S" word. But we’re willing to be unhip in the service of the truth.

It’s a frightening thing to see a once mighty, and free, capitalist economy placed under the heel of an incompetent government. But that’s precisely what’s happening now.

Executive pay, the focus of much public fury right now, is only the start. Your pay will be next, rest assured. So hold on to your wallets, sure, but also hold on even tighter to something even more precious that now seems at risk: your freedom.